Brooke Dixon

EN106 Sabrina Vargas-Ortiz

December 13th, 2019

Reflective Essay

Over the last 8 weeks in EN106 I have seen a great amount of changes in my writing

from grammar and spelling to maintaining the focus and being able to have the reader stay

intrigued the whole time. I am proud of how far I have come and the growth I have seen in my

work the last 16 weeks both in EN105 and EN106. Before these two English classes I only had

high school equivalent knowledge which was mainly book work and not writing. I have noticed

great changes just from the EN105 to EN106 as I am learning new tips and tricks to become an

even better writer.

I would say the biggest thing I learned was how to maintain focus throughout the entire

essay and how to write a strong thesis which will keep the reader hooked from the start.

Although we did learn so many things throughout each unit, the focus and development have not

only been my favorite, but also the easiest for me to expand my knowledge on and understand

why it’s important. Learning the process of development played a big role in my writing skills as

well because one needs to know how to capture great information and have it distributed in a

way that will enhance the essay and make it enjoyable yet factual at the same time.

Throughout the course of this class and the English class before this, I have managed to

bring my writing skills up tremendously. Improvements I noticed within my own writing that

word count was a big one. Before these classes I remember struggling to get 400-500 words in an

essay. Preparing drafts and collecting information and sources just wasn’t easy for me. Now, I
can write 1100 words easily instead of struggling like before. Another thing I saw improvement

in is my overall use of things we learned such as being able to cite and reference the source you

use as well as the documentation and layout of a full essay.

What I enjoyed most about the class was when we were able to write our major writing

assignment and we were allowed to pick our own topic of interest without having it picked out

for us already. I think the essay comes out better overall and that the students put in more work

when they are able to write something they are passionate about. When we are mandated to write

about a certain thing, especially if that topic doesn’t peak our interest, then we aren’t that

motivated to write about it and I feel that the essay comes out not as well written as it could have

been had we been able to pick our own topic. I think it’s important for our growth as a writer to

write nonfiction pieces sometimes because it allows students to express themselves in a different

way. In my essay I wrote about how technology should be allowed in classrooms whether that be

high school or college. I feel like that was my strongest piece of writing because I put a lot of

thought into it and I also provided numerous sources to back up my point of reason. Another

enjoyable thing that I thought was beneficial to both the instructor and the students was the peer

review feedback assignments. I think having our peer’s review our work instead of the teacher

allows us to see what kind of work the other students are doing and allows us to see the kinds of

things they’re looking for instead of the teacher who has a degree in English.

If I had to give any feedback or recommendation I would probably say to add one or

two more essays where the students get to choose the topic only because as I mentioned before, I

feel like it allows us to write about something we have a lot of opinions about and in the end is a

better, well rounded essay. All in all I would say I am very pleased with my work and how my

portfolio ended up being together. I feel like I have learned a lot in this class and that these
lessons will help in the other classes that I take. The tools we were taught will follow me and

allow my writing and understanding of English to further me more down the road. English hasn’t

been my favorite subject but with the tools and experience I now have I can fully say I am a lot

more confident in my writing abilities and skills than I was before.